Stability
by Indifferent Hugs
Summary: An experiment gone wrong brings three children into the Fantastic Four's life. The main problem? Those children are the physically de-aged cosmic entities.
1. Chapter 1

It had started out as a normal day in New York.

That is to say, a new superhero had shown up with a new villain, one of the Goblins was fighting Spiderman, a few loose supervillains were rampaging (and getting defeated by various heroes), and one crime head or another was making a power play.

Relatively, the Baxter Building was incredibly quiet. Of course, that would last as long as it took the group's leader, Reed Richards, Mr. Fantastic, to finish his newest invention.

"What is he even working on?" Johnny Storm asked, watching the genius adjust what looked like a giant laser coil until something clicked.

"Dunno, but Strech-o's really excited about it. Somethin' about intergalactic transport-something," Ben Grimms answered, watching as well.

"I think it's a long-distance teleporter. There are prototypes all over our universe, but none work with absolute certainty. Too long in where ever it is they get sent during transport," Sue told them, though she looked unsure.

"Got it!" The other members of the team straightened up at Reed's exclamation. He recoiled, destretching into his human shape, before turning to his family. Before he could say anything, however, the machine behind him went off. A beam of silver energy shot through the roof and continued out, vanishing into space.

"I'm pretty sure that wasn't supposed to happen, right?" Johnny asked, frowning.

Cutting Reed off again, the energy returned, this time coalescing into three small shapes that made all four superheroes stare blankly.

Three 5-6 year old children were sitting in the place of the energy, looking very, very confused. On the left was a dark-skinned boy with short black hair and black eyes, wearing what looked like a black toga. On the right was a girl with deep red hair and vivid green eyes with pale skin that accented her midnight blue dress. The boy in the middle had pitch black hair, green eyes, and tanned skin, and was wearing black jeans and a purple shirt.

"Did we just accidentally kidnap three cross-universe alien kids?" Johnny yelled, voice growing louder with every word. The kids shot him an odd look.

"No. I hope not. They look human, don't they?" Ben asked, eyeing the kids. The middle boy stood up, looking around for a second, before saying in a deeply annoyed voice, ""Don't judge a book by its cover" is one of your species' sayings, correct?"

"...Yes?"

The boy shook his head as the two others got up, both staring at themselves.

Reed stepped forward, looking them over.

"Excuse me, but who are you? We're sorry for transporting you against your will, it was an accident."

The child sighed, arms crossing with a neutral expression.

"I suppose I cannot blame you for not recognizing me or my siblings. We ourselves have never seen these forms before. I am Galactus. As you can guess, these are my brother, Eternity, and my sister, Death."

The silence that reigned was more than understandable.


	2. Chapter 2

"What?" Reed asked incredulously, stretching closer to the trio. The girl (Death?) had walked over to the teleportation device and was examining it. After a few seconds she sighed aggrivatedly and motioned the middle boy over.

"This is your area Galactus. I know nothing about electronics."

"Wait a second," Johnny began, staring at the three, "you can't just claim to be super powerful cosmic beings then start messing with Reed's stuff!"

The two boys joined her, ignoring the hero. Reed followed them, watching as the child that claimed to be Galactus pulled a side panel off of the device and started examining the inside wiring.

Ben scowled, muttering, "Well they have the attitude down."

"What did you _do_?" the child finally cried, turning to stare at Reed, who looked confused, "I hope that initial blast vaporized and fused a few things, otherwise..."

Reed looked over the kid's shoulder, frowning.

"There is a lot missing. I guess the malfunction teleported those parts elsewhere or I suppose they could have vaporized."

"Can you reverse the effects it caused?" the girl asked, looking concerned.

"If we can figure out what caused them, yes." The Fantastic Four took note of the word "we" in the green-eyed boy's statement. Clearly, entity or not, he expected help.

"Could you guys just wait a minute?!" Johnny yelled, arms flying up in exasperation, "You have given us no proof you are who you say you are!"

"Johnny's right," Sue told them, arms crossing over her chest, "you could be anyone. Word of mouth in a galaxy with shape-shifters, mystics, telepaths, and image inducers isn't the most reliable."

Both the girl and the boy who claimed to be Eternity looked insulted, but the last boy looked almost proud.

"You dare doubt our word-" the dark skinned child began furiously, before his "brother" interrupted him.

"It is a valid concern, Eternity. In their position, would you blindly believe what we just told them?" Ignoring the confused and calculating looks the other two were giving him, Galactus turned to Sue, still wearing his slightly proud expression.

"What do you need to confirm our identities?"

"An ID."

"Ignore Johnny. How did we defeat Ego?"

Galactus almost smiled before answering "Your Ben Grimms planted a make-shift bomb, created from a power cell from my thrusters, in Ego's brain while I and Thor attacked with a supercharged weapon. The resulting explosion killed the living planet."

Reed nodded, looking to his teammates. "The only other person that could have known that is Thor. I believe him."

Sue and Johnny nodded while Ben grumbled, "I guess. But that don't make me trust him any more than if he was an imposter."

Galactus either didn't hear or ignored Ben's skepticism, because the next thing he said was "I vouch for my siblings. They are who they claim."

Both of his siblings appeared to have accepted Galactus' words and turned back to their problem.

"Unfortunately we aren't who we claim to be. We are stuck in young human bodies with no idea how to reverse what your device did!" Eternity started out speaking, but was almost yelling by the end.

"Maybe if you gave them some time," Death muttered, rolling her eyes.

"It would help if we saw your original device, Reed Richards."

"It will take some time to get all new components for it. Around a month for all of them. Can you wait that long, Galactus?"

"No-!" Galactus discreetly stepped on his brother's foot.

"Easily."

"Okay. Until then, will you be staying with us?"

"Naturally."

"I'll show you where you can sleep," Sue offered, leading the children away. Once they left, Ben turned to Reed.

"Maybe I'm just bein' paranoid, but were they acting strange? That was off-kilter behavior for those cosmic entities."

Reed shrugged. "They were just transported who knows how far and turned into little kids. Wouldn't you be acting weird?"

"I guess. But still, they seemed kinda...human."

"Don't worry too much, Ben!" Johnny said with a grin, "Unless, of course, the Thing can be taken out by three little kids!"

With that, Johnny caught fire and flew off, laughing. Ben muttered under his breath and followed. Reed watched them before turning back to his machine. He shook his head and left as well, wanting to make sure their guests were settling in.

It was strange how many pieces went missing, though...

**(Sorry for the cartoon cannon, it was all I could think of)**


End file.
